KTEA-III question - is this score valid? - Gifted Issues Discussion Forum

The following is from the narrative portion of a KTEA-III given to my eighth grader:

Quote

As he was shown the blank page, in which he was asked to summarize the story that he had just worked through, he began to whimper and rock back and forth on his chair. Because the examiner had developed a strong rapport with student, she suggested that they take a break, as it was historically recognized that student struggles with open-ended writing tasks. When the examiner reframed the assignment, asking that student write five sentences describing the story, student began to yell, stating that the problem is that he can come up with ideas in his head and say them aloud but he cannot transfer them to the page. When student was then given specific parameters about what to include in the story (one introduction sentence, three details, one concluding sentence) and the examiner offered to scribe for student, he, after a bit of audible moaning, started telling the examiner what to write. He produced a piece according to the expectations. It contained an adequate introduction and conclusion. Two of the detail sentences were taken directly from the story, while the other one spoke about what feasibly may have occurred but was not specifically mentioned.

I guess it's good that the examiner got him to produce something, but I'm pretty skeptical of his 87th percentile score on Written Expression after reading this. In particular, is it appropriate to provide the specific parameters he was given? How about scribing for him, given that he does not have a writing disability?

If the school is going to deny writing services on this basis (I don't know if they are - the meeting is tomorrow), I'm not sure how he is supposed to manage if the psychologist is not planning to follow him around and jolly him through every assignment in every class. (The described behavior is totally in line with what we see at home around homework.) Any suggestions?

In answer to the specific question of validity: no, this is not a valid score (nor are any of the composites derived from it). The various levels of scaffolding that the examiner offered were likely in the way of "testing of limits", which is a way of obtaining clinically-rich information beyond a discontinue or untestable behavior.

With regard to decisions about services and accommodations, this provides fairly clear evidence that he needs some kind of accommodations for writing, in that he has better underlying expressive language than can be demonstrated in a typical on-demand writing task. If this were in one of my evaluations, I would probably have included corresponding recommendations, such as graphic organizer/mind-map (since giving the parameters supported his ability to structure the written product), oral pre-writing exercises (since that is essentially what the examiner did with him, both by structuring and by scribing), speech-to-text for first drafts (scribing), and possibly others, like priming the pump (this may mean a sentence starter or first sentence, or may encompass the oral prewriting mentioned above), or rubrics/checklists for writing.

All of these supports have more to do with executive function and managing anxiety than they do with physical writing.

The way this portion of the eval is written does not suggest to me that the psych is in favor of denying him services.

Originally Posted by aeh

The way this portion of the eval is written does not suggest to me that the psych is in favor of denying him services.

I hope you're right! You probably are. This is a school psychologist who has been incredibly supportive, if anything too much so. I found out at the end of the year last year that she had been going into the cafeteria to buy his lunch every day so that he would not have to face the crowding and noise.

It sounds like the psychologist is not in favor of denying him services. But we are earlier in the process than I thought we were - now waiting for the case manager to do an updated IEP, and then we will have another meeting to go over that.

I'm just feeling defeated today.

My sympathies.

Where you are, there is an evaluation review/eligibility meeting first, and then a separate IEP development meeting.

I know it can feel endless, but that's the process in many states. And it's still only September. You'll get there!

ETA: as you probably know, the team has 30 calendar days to propose the IEP, so it can be no longer than the end of October.

I know we will get there. And he has an IEP already - this is just amending it. So it's not like he's not getting services in the mean time. This meeting was to go over new testing and FBA. I hate the FBA process - it seems so pointless. He has a new case manager this year, so maybe the BIP will be different, but I'm not feeling super hopeful.